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World Learning Awarded $43 Million USAID Agreement to Manage Grants to Aid the Needs of Survivors

Program will assist vulnerable populations through support service delivery, training and related activities.

BRATTLEBORO, VT (August 25, 2008) -- World Learning has been awarded a $43 million Cooperative Agreement from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement Special Programs to Aid the Needs of Survivors (SPANS) Grants Solicitation and Management (GSM). SPANS GSM is an umbrella grant making mechanism that will support service delivery, training and related activities aimed at assisting vulnerable populations. Through this five-year agreement, World Learning will support USAID's goal of improving the health and well being of specific vulnerable populations, including displaced children and orphans, war victims, and victims of torture.

"These grants are intended to address some of the critical needs of the most vulnerable people," said Carol Bellamy, President and CEO of World Learning. "We are eager to do our small part to ensure that available resources and services get to those who can most benefit from them."

World Learning will award the grants on behalf of USAID's Office of Democracy and Governance within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, providing grants in a number of thematic areas, including:

• Wheelchairs -- Supporting wheelchair provision, including research, testing and developing international standards
• Displaced Children's and Orphans Fund (DCOF) -- Preventing inappropriate institutionalization of children; assisting formerly institutionalized children to integrate into communities; working with ministries to develop appropriate child protection methods; providing emergency child protection measures in conflict situations; and promoting early childhood development for vulnerable children
• War Victims Fund/Disabilities (WVF) -- Improving data and information about the use and utility of prosthetic and orthotic devices and physical therapy as part of a rehabilitation continuum; vocation and economic strengthening for people with disabilities; and strengthening disabled people's organizations.
• Victims of Torture, Disability -- Support for activities related to victims of torture or disability issues that cannot be included in the above categories but still fit with the overall SPANS GSM objective of improved health for vulnerable populations

Tapping nearly two decades of experience implementing USAID funded sub-grant programs and its team of experienced grants management professionals, World Learning will administer the SPANS GSM grant making process from identifying potential grantees, to soliciting applications, to monitoring project implementation to closeout.  To promote and communicate the efforts of SPANS GSM, World Learning will also organize periodic meetings and produce a variety of publications.